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Air 403 - rusting away
By esc, Section Wind Posted on Mon Oct 26, 2009 at 06:35:28 PM MST
The magnets are shedding rust and gumming up the works.

Some may remember the Air 403 I salvaged after hurricane Ike ate my house. I pulled it out of the sand, cleaned it up and it seemed as good as new.
1 year later and things have changed.
It recently stopped spinning to I took it down and opened it up. It now looks worse inside than it did after it sat in seawater and sand for 2 weeks after the hurricane. There is rust EVERYWHERE. It looks like it all came from the magnets. They are covered in a 1/4" thick layer of fine red powder (rust). The same rust is everywhere else, plugging up the bearings and brushes.
Once the magnets have started to rust like this, what are my options?
Can I stop the existing magnets from rusting further? If so how?
If I can't salvage the existing magnets, I suppose I'll try to find replacements.

Air 403 - rusting away | 3 comments (3 topical)

Re: Air 403 - rusting away (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by Flux on Mon Oct 26, 2009 at 11:55:12 PM MST

I doubt that you will stop corrosion of neo magnets when it has got this far established. Others may be more optimistic but I can't offer you much hope that is not going to need a lot of effort and eventually end in failure.

Not sure where you source magnets, there were some surplus magnets available from SWWP at one point but I don't know if they fitted the 403.

Flux

Re: Air 403 - rusting away (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by bob golding on Tue Oct 27, 2009 at 04:09:22 AM MST

i seem to have rescued my rusty magnets,so far anyway, by cleaning them up,then dipping them in jenolite. after they come out of the jenolite i dipped them in galvafroid. not sure if you can get jenolite and galvafroid outside the UK. but there might be something simular. jenolite is phosphoric acid based,and galvafroid is zinc based. i have had a test magnet sticking to the side of my coach for the last 4 months and so far it is fine. i am about a mile from the sea.

bob golding

Re: Air 403 - rusting away (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by esc on Tue Oct 27, 2009 at 05:36:42 AM MST

That sounds like an interesting idea. I expect I can find similar products around here somewhere. But it is such a pain to take it all apart (after it is gummed up) and replace the bearings, that it is probably worth my while to check SWWP for replacements.

This thing is REALLY hard to get apart. The heads of the bolts that hold the rectifier on twisted off, the stator is "fused" to the front housing with iron and aluminum oxide and the rotor is stuck to the stator with more "rust glue".

I guess I'll just have to finish the disassembly and see what I can salvage. I think that if it can be brought back from the dead a second time, I'll have to give it a name. :)

For any not familiar with the story, this 403 has seen conditions far outside those any reasonable person would expect it to survive. IMO, its current state of decay is in no way a failure on the part of SWWP. Quite the contrary, the fact that it might live again and that it was relatively easy to resurrect the first time, after spending 2 weeks in the ocean, reflects very highly on the original design and build quality.

[ Parent ]

Air 403 - rusting away | 3 comments (3 topical)

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